Category Archives: Pioneer of the Year

When Hopalong Cassidy rode to the rescue at Hawthorn’s Glenferrie Theatre I used to stamp my feet with all the other 10 year olds. When Tarzan plucked Jane from the jaws of death, I cheered. Tom and Jerry was a laugh from first to last. The Saturday matinee was a joyous, tribal ritual and I…

Daryl’s fascination with the motion picture industry began in his pre-school days during WW2. On hot summers evenings, music and strange voices often wafted in on the sea breeze to his Bicton home. He discovered they were coming from the nearby Mayfair picture theatre outdoor gardens. At Richmond primary school he was allowed to operate…

Longreach has its Stockman’s Hall of Fame, the Outback Heritage Centre and the Qantas Founders Museum among other iconic Queensland landmarks, but as far as we’re concerned the most important icon in Longreach is our Cinema Pioneer of the year, Norm Salsbury. Norm’s first became interested in the cinema when he was seven years old,…

Zareh Nalbandian began his career in the film industry as an intern at Australia’s then leading film post production group, Colorfilm. Already an avid photographer, he quickly developed a passion for film optical effects and worked in Colorfilm’s optical effects department on various iconic Australian films in the 1980’s. Zareh took on several diverse management…

Pam’s earliest movie memory was when, at age five, her mother took her to the matinee screening at the Majestic Cinema in Kalgoolie to see “Blackboard Jungle”, starring Glenn Ford, who was one of her favourite actors. This was the start of her interest in movies and all they represented. Pam’s working life in the…

Roger and Denice Harrison are Queensland’s first Joint Cinema Pioneers of the year. In the Picture Show business Roger is a pretty rare breed – he has a history of three generations in the Industry. Not many people can claim that sort of pedigree. Denice, a Cinema Pioneer in her own right, also has a…

The retirement of Fred from Launceston’s Village Cinema 4 in 2014 brought to a close over 60 years of involvement with picture theatres in Victoria and Tasmania. His life in cinemas began in the late-1940s and early-1950s when his mother worked as a cleaner at Hoyts Southern Theatre at Hampton in Victoria. He had the…

In the mid 1950’s and from a very young age, John spent a great deal of time helping in the bio-box of the Empire Cinema in Cessnock, where his Uncle was Area Manager for Greater Union Cinemas. Ironically, due to the many coalfeld strikes, crews from Cinesound and Movietone News were often in the area.…

Peter Fenton began his flm career as a sound mixer with Merv Murphy’s Paddington production company Supreme Sound in 1958. Te complex, which included a laboratory, specialized in cinema and television commercials as well as documentaries and an occasional television pilot. Peter had worked with radio 2UE as an onair panel operator and later production…

Temporarily tempted out of retirement earlier this year to run 70mm screenings of “The Hateful Eight”, Dick’s long cinema career first began back in March 1958 when he trained as an Assistant Projectionist at the Plaza Theatre in suburban Northcote under Jim Mitchell and Peter Pennell. He soon heard of a vacancy at the Austral…